Almost 800 enthusiastic delegates from MVA’s member organizations, joined by dozens of invited community leaders, politicians, guests and observers packed the Italian Cultural Centre in Vancouver on October 9, 2014.

They were all there to hear from Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, NPA mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe, COPE mayoral candidate Meena Wong and Green Party Councillor Adriane Carr on the issues MVA members identified as the priorities they felt they had in common and could work on together.

All four politicians said yes to MVA's proposals around social isolation, transit, poverty, and housing.

They said yes to working with MVA to develop solutions to social isolation and committed to reforming the city permit process to facilitate community building events.

They said yes to campaigning to pass the upcoming transit referendum and committed to advocating for affordable transit in the region.

They said yes to developing a plan to make the City of Vancouver a living wage employer and to promoting the living wage to other municipalities and employers.

And they said yes to strengthening and enforcing by-laws which protect tenants from renovictions and to making covenants a component in all new developments in Vancouver.

Regardless of who wins the upcoming civic election, these commitments will make Vancouver a more inclusive city, a fairer city, a better housed city, and a city on the move.

None of this would have been possible without MVA supporters, Research/Action Team members, MVA volunteers and leaders, and the hundreds of MVA members who participated in our listening campaigns.

But, as Co-chair Joey Hartman said as she closed the assembly, "we're not so naive as to think there's not going to be some work to do and hashing out details.” Now the real work begins for MVA to hold the politicians to their promises.